Purple emperor cat

[Padfield]

Thanks, Pete. I'll try and be down there by 6.00am for the first one, which I think will be Constantine.

A male and a female would be good...

Guy

[Padfield]

14 days after I found Diocletian he still looks green. Constantine shows no signs of colouring up either. Both look healthy and undamaged, so I am beginning to think the often-quoted two weeks period is a little short. It is reassuring that the Kipper's wild pupae took 19 days to hatch. Perhaps two weeks is for conditions in captivity.


(Diocletian)


(Constantine)

Guy

[Padfield]

This is Diocletian tonight:



Should I get Roger, Paul and Nick up at 5.00am tomorrow morning?

Guy

[Neil Hulme]

Yes, go to bed NOW!
Neil

[Padfield]

Thanks, Kipper!

Guy

[Lee Hurrell]

Good luck Guy!

You're probably all there waiting as I type this...

Cheers

Lee

[Padfield]

We're still waiting! He's been pumping fluids in his abdomen all morning. Does this mean he might still emerge today, or cozld it be preparation for emergence tomorrow? Still no white spots.

Guy

[Trev Sawyer]

I'm pacing up and down the corridor in anticipation with a big fat cigar ready to light...
No spots yet?.... Perhaps it's an iole!


Trev

[Padfield]

He's got to come out tomorrow, I think (opinions welcome - still no white spots). Here he is at 8.00pm tonight:



Thanks for the support!

I've got very good footage of the fluid movements in the pupa today and it was not time lost in the woods.

Guy

[Pete Eeles]

I have to admit, I'm stumped. I've never seen an iris pupa looking anything like this!

I can only assume it's stuck But given the level of transparency now coming through the shell, surely it has to emerge in the next 24 hours!

Cheers,

- Pete

[Padfield]

Thanks, Pete. Whatever it is, it's very definitely alive. It was fascinating watching it shift fluids around today, leaving large regions of the shell presumably ready to dry out and get crisp. I left the video camera running on it for about 2 hours (so we could watch other butterflies in the woods - getting good shots of purple emperor, white admiral, woodland ringlet, white-letter hairstreak &c.). I'm going down at daybreak tomorrow and the others will probably follow a little later - but I just don't want to miss the chance of catching the moment of the shell breaking on video.

Diocletian's failure to emerge changed our schedule today, as we were going to go on a long, high trip. But we got a lot of excellent species staying local in the afternoon, including cranberry fritillary, dusky and scarce large blues, moorland clouded yellow, Eriphyle ringlet &c. &c. Going high tomorrow.

Guy

[Padfield]

Forgive the sudden lack of posts, just when it was getting interesting. It's difficult to find time to do the bureau stuff with Roger, Nick and Paul around!

Sadly, Diocletian is dead. I was wrong when I said he was definitely alive - I suspect he was dead already by then. As the sun came onto him bubbles of gas forming inside expanded and rose, giving the impression of fluids being pumped and causing the movements of the chrysalis. For two consecutive mornings, from 5.30am until almost midday, I filmed a sepulchre with a slowly putrefying butterfly inside, rather than a chrysalis. A bit of a downer.

I have a theory as to why. When he pupated it was cold - very cold. The sun hadn't been in the sky for weeks and I suspect he didn't have enough information to select the right spot to pupate. Immediately after he had pupated a heat wave began, and during the late morning he received direct sunlight.

Constantine is still green and looks healthy but he doesn't respond to the grass tickle trick. Perhaps CC could tell me if that means he too is dead, or whether the reaction stops as pupation nears its end (my hope is that it does, to avoid shaking vigorously just when delicate organs are being laid down).

Guy

[Pete Eeles]

For what it's worth, Guy, I think your dedication to providing local observations and updating us, has been outstanding. Although this didn't work out as expected, your observations have kept us all enthralled! And I think these observations, in particular, are worthy of note for sure. I'd be interested to hear what Mr. Hulme and Mr. Oates have to say.

Keep up the good work. Your perseverance is something to be admired.

Cheers,

- Pete

[Neil Hulme]

Hi Guy and Pete,
I'm afraid I knew that all was not well when he/she failed to emerge that morning - once a (healthy) pupa colours up like that, he/she is coming out! I was also a little worried that I couldn't see a clear white band, although a 'trick of the light' in a single image could have explained this away. I think Guy is correct, the extremes of conditions under which cell reorganisation was attempted were probably responsible for this unhappy outcome - and I'm sure it's far from rare for failures to occur when weather conditions are 'against'. Fingers crossed for Constantine - don't worry too much about the tickle test just yet.
Neil

[Padfield]

Thanks, Pete and Kipper. I will, of course, persevere with Constantine, who is located in a far shadier part of the bushes.

The profligacy of nature is staggering, but of course without such high wastage evolution could never operate. The emperors we see beating circles around the ashes and sparring with the white-letter hairstreaks are the cream of the cream - the elite, who have been rigorously selected out of hundreds by a process that would put even Sir Sugar to shame.

Guy

[Cotswold Cockney]

He's got to come out tomorrow, I think (opinions welcome - still no white spots). Here he is at 8.00pm tonight:



Thanks for the support!

I've got very good footage of the fluid movements in the pupa today and it was not time lost in the woods.

Guy

As soon as i saw this image I thought ~ parasitised! It is rare but does happen. Those "fluid movements" were probably the larva(e) of the parasite(s) moving internally ~ seen that a few times over the years.

Yes, I have noticed as the developement approaches emergence, good responses to the tickle test become less noticeable. In a healthy pupa just before emergence, the 'blackness' of the imago fills much of the pupa case ~ very little space and gaps like those which can be seen in the above image.
..

Edit to add @ 01:36 :~

"Constantine" appears to be a female pupa... we shall see ... although ....
.

[Padfield]

It would make sense if Constantine were female, in terms of the emergence date. I'm interested to know how you know, though, CC.

I dropped down to the woods at 6.00pm tonight and arrived just as a storm broke. The skies were black, thunder was about a second behind the lightning and rain was not far off. SO, these pictures were snatched as hastily as possible (I still got caught before I had even got out of the woods):





Constantine looks more 'solid' than before - any opinions as to whether the birth is due tomorrow or the following day (or indeed, whether he, too, is doomed) would be gratefully received.

I have support for CC's theory that Diocletian was parasitised. Although this picture is even rubbisher, you can see that a spider has set up home on the corpse and is happily guzzling what appears to be some species of wasp. I'm happier with the idea of parasitism - it's not quite as bleak as just boiling to death in the sun (no comments on use of 'bleak' please, Felix!! ).



Guy

[Cotswold Cockney]

If you look at this first picture of Pete Eeles' » Thu Jul 01, 2010 7:03 pm << posting, that is how a healthy pupa appears a few hours before successful emergence ~ no evidence of 'voids' in the pupa case and more detail visible of the wing markings..


..

Your latest picture of the unfortunate pupa is exactly how a few of my Apatura pupae appeared that one year in the 1980s when I discovered that harmless looking "House Fly" in my breeding greenhouse was nothing of the kind. The "harmless" fly I was later to observe lay a disproportionately large 'banana' shaped ovum on the back of a near fully grown Apatura larva. Checking some of the other larvae in my care revealed more fly ova on their backs which were very difficult to remove being affixed with the strongest adhesive in the known universe... ... I had to use forceps very carefully to crush each ovum on the backs of these larvae.

Later, some of my other pupae coloured up just as 'yours' had done with those visible voids but, failed to produce a successful imago ~ the parasite within being a fat small, white grub like larva which produced an oval featureless fly pupa. The grub eats the developing butterfly imago which starts to shrink and collapse within the pupal case after a few days....Hence the voids...

The fly involved being a species of Tachinid which looks very similar to the usual House Fly ...

..

[Padfield]

Diocletian with attendant fly two nights ago:



Constantine this afternoon:



It's fifteen days since I found him and there is no reason at all to suppose I found him soon after pupation, as I'd never looked deep in the bush there before. I think Constantine is also a statistic now, though I will keep checking on him until he goes the way of Diocletian.

Guy

[Piers]

Guy,

I think that the dipterons in the image were attracted to the smell of the decaying pupa rather than being the architects of Diocletian's demise.

The spider is experiencing rather wonderful luck for an arachnid.

Dare I ask for any further news of constantine...?

Felix.